The ban on plastic bags at checkout counters in a growing number of California communities, including San Francisco and Alameda County, cleared another legal hurdle last week when a state appeals court in Los Angeles ruled that a 10-cent fee for a paper bag isn't a tax that needs voter approval.

In previous challenges, largely unsuccessful, the plastic bag industry claimed that cities and counties had not adequately considered the environmental effects of switching from plastic to paper. The latest ruling involved the fee that stores charge customers who don't bring their own reusable bags.

Hilex Poly Co., the nation's largest manufacturer of single-use plastic bags, argued in a 2011 lawsuit that a payment mandated by a local government for a specified purpose amounts to a "special tax," which under state law must be approved by two-thirds of the local voters.

The company cited Proposition 26, a November 2010 ballot measure that said any "levy, charge or exaction" by a state or local government is a tax requiring voter approval. The measure made an exception for fees covering the costs of services or products for the fee-payers, or specified licensing and regulatory costs.

A Los Angeles County judge dismissed the company's challenge to a ban on plastic carryout bags in unincorporated areas of the county. That ruling was upheld Thursday by the Second District Court of Appeal.

Because the 10-cent paper bag fee is "payable to and retained by the retail store," Croskey said, it is not a tax. He said voters in 2010 would have understood that they were restricting the authority of the state and local governments to raise and collect funds from their residents.

Nearly 50 cities and counties have enacted similar laws, starting with San Francisco in 2007. Michael Colantuono, a lawyer for statewide associations of city and county governments, said a ruling classifying those ordinances as taxes could have imperiled a variety of other laws, including rent control and requirements that government contractors pay local prevailing wages.

If a store's fee on paper bags was found to be a tax, the same classification could apply "any time the government orders people to charge a particular price and limits how they spend the proceeds," Colantuono said.